Links for the Day Olivia de Havilland on Gone with the Wind, Madonna Interview, We Must Stop Police Abuse of Black Men, The Best Album Covers of 2014, & More

“Vivien Leigh and I were deeply attached to George [Cukor] and secretly sought his help all during the filming. But Victor [Fleming] really was the right director for this epic. The first time we worked together was when we filmed the scene where Melanie, engaged to Ashley and therefore the future mistress of Twelve Oaks, greets Scarlett. We rehearsed and I was warm, pleasant, and polite. He drew me aside and very gently observed, ’Every word that Melanie says, she means.’ That direction was an invaluable key to her character, and it served me throughout the film. Victor, with all his virility, was sensitive and insightful.”

“This is more or less the extent of everything I know about the film; there probably isn’t a whole lot more to know. Two things fascinate me about Une Femme Coquette, the first being its unobtainability. JLG fans are uncommonly thorough and completist; every one of the video communiqués he sends in lieu of public appearances has fan subtitles and detailed annotations, and everything he’s committed to film or video can be privately obtained, even if only through bootlegs. Everything except Une Femme Coquette; as far as I know, the only way to see the film is from a 16 mm print that is screened publicly at most twice a decade. It has eluded not just me, but the entire code-breaking subculture of Godard fandom.”

“Hours after coming out of the police academy, I was told something as a new rookie officer: You’d rather be tried by 12 jurors than carried by six pallbearers. In my impressionable first days, I saw officers leave the precinct every day touching the lockers of their fallen brothers. They started their shift on the defensive, thinking about protecting themselves, as opposed to the communities they served, regardless of the complexion of those communities. One of my white fellow officers once told me that if he saw a white individual with a gun, he took extra care for himself and the individual. When he saw a black individual with a gun, he took care only for himself.”

4. “Interview: Madonna.” For Interview, David Blaine chats with the musician about everything from Banksy to Tarkovsky.

“I like Banksy. I think he’s inspiring and he speaks to what’s going on in the world, socially. I like JR. Like [Jean-Michel] Basquiat and Keith Haring, who both started off as graffiti artists—their art is on the street, available for anyone to see. It’s not elitist. You can see Banksy’s work driving by it on the street, and JR’s work—the way he takes photographs of people and turns them into heroes in their communities and makes people proud of who they are. My son is interning with JR right now and that’s a great education for him.”

“Visually speaking, musicians are now being pushed to find untraditional entry points into their work, such as interactive online experiences, apps, and sensory installations, not to mention the always evolving live show and its subsequent trail of YouTube videos. But still, the album cover remains a powerful factor in how we make sense of a record—whether it’s presented via gatefold vinyl or shrunk all the way down to fit on your smartphone screen. In no particular order, these 20 covers informed and inspired as the lynchpin of their album’s aesthetic ecosystem better than any others we saw year.”

Links for the Day: A collection of links to items that we hope will spark discussion. We encourage our readers to submit candidates for consideration to ed@slantmagazine.com and to converse in the comments section.

Slant is reaching more readers than ever before, but advertising revenue across the Internet is falling fast, hitting independently owned and operated publications like ours the hardest. We’ve watched many of our fellow media sites fall by the way side in recent years, but we’re determined to stick around.

We’ve never asked our readers for financial support before, and we’re committed to keeping our content free and accessible—meaning no paywalls or subscription fees. If you like what we do, however, please consider becoming a Slant patron.